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Mexico ranks low for global ocean health

By Sabrina Rodriguez, Politics on September 8, 2015

Cancun, Q.R. – Among the 221 countries and regions recently evaluated by Ocean Health Index, Mexico ranked 155. According to their appraisal, Mexico’s low score is the result of the over-exploitation of fishing and pollution.

The comprehensive study covers numerous factors in the evaluation of the ranking, which highlights the social, economic and environmental aspects of each country. Researchers from the University of California were responsible for verifying the resources of each coastal town.

Solomon Mondragon Diaz, director of Ecological Management in the Secretariat of Environment and Natural Resources (Semarnat), says, “They measure how much pollution comes from the land to the sea and what the protection status is of the marine life such as sharks, turtles and whales.”

In this sense, Mexico was not well positioned and experts say that Mexico does not have a comprehensive policy for the protection of its seas and coasts.

According to the Ocean Health Index, countries occupying the top places in conservation are Finland, Sweden and Denmark.

“According to these global indexes, which act as a baseline, we can keep improving in each of the trends so that the federal government and each state can contribute to better health of the ocean,” said Diaz Mondragon.

Mexico has different laws when it comes to marine conservation; however, there is no inclusion of concepts on eco-system-based management integrated with coastal management. Research experts say that a country must meet all public policies that are set at protecting the marine ecosystem, with the intention of working uniformly.

The Index measures the global state of the world’s oceans. An Index score for 221 Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZs) and 15 sectors of the high seas is calculated using existing global data. Other evaluations included Canada with a ranking of 70 and the United States with a ranking of 69.